Fewer Jobs, Lower Pay: 2024 Placements Have Students Facing Dim Prospects

In a post that has since gone viral on social media, it is being touted that nearly a third of all students from the previous outgoing batch and the current batch at IIT-Bombay are unable to find jobs.

The institute then issued a clarification on April 4 that among the graduating students of 2022-2023, only 6.1% students are still looking for jobs. It refused to comment on placements through campus for students graduating this year though.

The college is yet to complete its second phase of placements and it remains to be seen what final numbers will look like. Still, the college in question is India's answer to the Ivy Leagues, except that it's a lot harder to crack. About under a percent of all engineering aspirants crack India's premier IITs.

Yet, the ongoing debacle presents a snap view of a challenging placement season this year.

"Hiring freeze is a word I hear a lot," said a student placement cell head at one of the colleges under the Symbiosis International University. Large companies, which are regulars on campus every year are absent this time around, she said on the condition of anonymity. Often, companies complete the formalities but then back out.

Only about 20% of the batch size has been placed so far, as compared with at least about 90% in a usual year. "That's despite expanding our databases by nearly 10 times," she said.

Fewer placements have forced colleges to extend the placement season, while companies have realised that the ball is in their court.

"The packages that are being offered are ridiculously low," the placement head quoted above said, adding that starting salaries of Rs 3 lakh per annum for cities like Mumbai and Delhi are "borderline exploitative".

The college's regulations are strict and students have to accept the first offer they get. As such, students feel like they have no choice but to eventually drop out of campus placements. In some cases, she has heard of colleges forcing students to drop out of the placement process to show better placement rates.

It's an extended placement season for MBA students at the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, as well. The batch saw fewer companies dish out pre-placement offers. Now, it's seeing several of its major recruiters in a hiring freeze.

Some recruiters only went to the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Calcutta, says another student, speaking anonymously. Others have offered very low packages. Median packages this year have been lower. She has been recruited by a digital marketing agency, but at a lower package than the company had offered her seniors a year back.

Last year's batch was placed by January, she said. This year, so far, placements are still on. The college has managed to place about 550 students in a batch of 600. Not just foreign companies but a lot of Indian companies too were on a hiring freeze, she said.

While the final term has ended for students graduating, about 50 students at the Great Lakes Institute of Management have had to stay back as they are yet to be placed.

For summer placements for the first-year batch, there was an environment of panic, with students being encouraged to fend for themselves, instead of relying on colleges for campus summer placements, a student at the Delhi institute said.

Job listings portal Indeed’s data indicates that fresher hiring has been on a downward trend since the pandemic. Since December 2021, fresher job postings have declined by 8.5%, whereas job clicks have fallen by 34.3%, it said in a statement. In December 2023, there was a 4.2% decline in the jobs posted for freshers as compared with December 2022.

The lower hiring trend for entry-level jobs is noticeable even in the tech sector, where companies are reevaluating their recruitment strategies.

Still, premier institutes are holding on. "Despite a challenging job market this year, IIM-A witnessed significant recruiter engagement during the placement season," said Ankur Sinha, chairperson of the placement committee at the institute.

Along with the rise in the number of participating companies, the institute saw greater diversity in the job roles offered, Sinha said. For most others, reality differs.